James Baldwin // “The world changes according to the way people see it, and if you alter, even by a millimeter, the way people look at reality, then you can change it.”
To celebrate what would have been the 100th birthday of writer, activist, essayist, and public intellectual on August 2, the New York Public Library has assembles a collection of the most important and extraordinary items from its holdings of Baldwin’s papers.
Celebrating 100 Years of James Baldwin at NYPL honors James Baldwin’s love for libraries and the story of James Baldwin’s education and literary path is deeply intertwined with the history of The New York Public Library. Baldwin was born in Harlem across the street from what would later become the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, and visited the library three or four times a week in his youth when it was one of the first integrated libraries at NYPL.
Baldwin first arrived at the flagship 42nd Street Library, now known as the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, as a teenager. The library left such an impression on him that he became a regular patron, and the building makes an appearance in the novel Go Tell It on the Mountain. Today the Schomburg Center stewards James Baldwin’s collection of personal papers, ephemera, manuscripts, and materials.
Visitors can now see the first major exhibitions of NYPL’s Baldwin papers at the two libraries that inspired him. Highlights include manuscripts of his most famous and influential works, including the drafts of Go Tell It on the Mountain, Giovanni’s Room, and The Fire Next Time. Also on show is James Baldwin’s high school literary magazine from DeWitt Clinton High School, and correspondence with Maya Angelou and Lorraine Hansberry.
“James Baldwin was born with gifts, but there’s no question that the New York Public Library and other public city resources played a critical, nurturing role in the early intellectual development of this artist who opened the minds and hearts of so many people around the world. That’s something that all New Yorkers can celebrate,” said Charles Cuykendall Carter, Assistant Curator of the Carl H. Pforzheimer Collection of Shelley and His Circle and Curator of James Baldwin: Mountain to Fire.
James Baldwin: Mountain to Fire at the Polonsky Exhibition of The New York Public Library’s Treasures (Stephen A. Schwarzman Building) runs through Fall 2025. JIMMY! God’s Black Revolutionary Mouth (Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture) opens August 2, 2024 and runs through February 2025.
